This morning I went to try out Wheatfields. A new eatery just a block away from home. ‘New’ meaning it’s been there a year but I refused to eat there. It used to be a wonderful European pastry shop with some soups and sandwiches. You really went there for the desserts. The building was sold and the owners forced them out because they wanted to charge a higher rent on the place. So they brought in a regional chain.

The service was great. My server was rather delicious looking himself. Very pleasant and he went back to the kitchen to get me more seasoning for my soup. I’ll get to the soup in a moment.

First, I’ll tell you about the half order of hot beef sandwich. The potatoes were good with no lumps. Since moving to Nebraska, getting mashed potatoes without lumps is a challenge. They think that they much leave lumps to prove they used real potatoes. I’m from Idaho. Lumpy mashed potatoes is a sign of a lazy cook. In grade school I could quickly use a hand masher and get smooth potatoes without using butter or a lot of cream. I used about a table spoon or two of milk depending on the number of potatoes. That’s it. So the mash passed my standards.

The gravy was nothing to write home about. But it was homemade beef gravy. Not the super dark brown glop you often get on open faced hot beef sandwiches. On one hand it was my father’s ordinary gravy. On the other hand it was better than most everywhere else. And I didn’t even need to add any pepper.

The beef was to die for. It was an amazing roast that was shredded and put on the sandwich. No slices folded together. I thought it odd that it didn’t come with a steak knife. Until I cut into it with my fork. No knife needed for this sandwich.

I ordered a half order. It was huge. Half of the half order is now in my fridge for tomorrow.

They had two soups for today. One was Tomato and Cheese. I don’t like cheese soups in general and don’t like tomatoes. I tried the other one. Cajun Shrimp soup. Let me count the flaws…..

1. The shrimp was salad shrimp.

2. Bland

3. Beyond bland into absolute lack of flavor.

The soup seemed to be a broth with a little bit of onion, some chopped carrots, and some cut tomato. To this was added rice, salad shrimp, and some tomato paste. There was supposedly some Cajun seasoning in there as well. Cajun food is not normally bland. Even if it isn’t spicy it normally doesn’t have a complete lack of any flavor at all.

I asked for some Cayenne pepper. They didn’t have any but the kitchen sent me two little tubs of spice. One had about 1T of cajun seasoning and the other had a chili power that was paprika based with some cayenne and some other chili in it. I put half the cajun and a bit of the chili in it. Better. I then added all the rest of the cayenne and half of the chili. MUCH better.

Rice, shrimp, and tomato paste does not make a dish Cajun. Scaring the dish with the bottle of Cajun seasoning does not make is Cajun. You have to actually USE the Cajun seasoning until it tastes like a Cajun dish before you can use the word Cajun to describe it.

Now you may wonder what a Mayor’s Tax has to do with this food rant. If you are from anywhere near Omaha, NE you probably know where I’m going. The new 2.5 % tax that gets added to your restaurant bill AFTER the state taxes. So you also get taxed on the tax. Different places have labled it differently on their sale’s slip. I had to laugh when I saw that Wheatfield’s is labeling it the “Mayor’s Tax”.

People want to recall Mayor Suttle. I understand the few people who are saying the economic and budgetary situation he inherited was not his fault. They are right. But the people who want to recall him are not doing so because they think he created the situation. They want to recall him because of his reaction to the situation. The city council actually soften his ideas when they passed the budget. The people of Omaha hated his ideas and plans once he got into office. As much as people are screaming now, it would have been 2 – 3 times worse if the budget has passed as Mayor Suttle envisioned it rather than the way the council modified it and softened it.

The worse is, of course, the wheel tax. People who live outside Omaha but work in Omaha now have to pay a wheel tax. It will be collected via payroll deduction. The issues is that these people are being taxed who have no way to vote on it. No representation in Omaha. There is a very large portion of couples who live outside the city and drive one vehicle to work. But both will be charged the wheel tax on the one vehicle. A person who happens to have two jobs in Omaha is going to get charged the wheel tax twice. Once for each job even thought it is one vehicle.

People who live in Omaha already pay a wheel tax when they register their vehicle, but only once per vehicle. Our wheel tax is going up as well and for less than the mayor wanted. The city council lowered that amount as well.

The Mayor is very tax happy. I understand they needed to raise taxes but he was going way out over the deep end about it. The fact that Wheatfields now shows a ‘Mayor’s Tax’ on their sales slips seems funny and appropriate.